Bargain Benn, modest Miliband (Ed, not David)

Friday 8 May 2009 17.33 EDT
First published on Friday 8 May 2009 17.33 EDT

Among the claims for horse manure and cat food there are some ministers who come up smelling of roses.

In particular, cabinet ministers in charge of trying to make a little go a longer way - Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, and Hilary Benn, the environment secretary - both appear to be very frugal indeed.

Miliband claimed only £6,300 a year in rent for a two-up, two-down, red-brick terraced house in his Doncaster North constituency.

A glance at last year's figures shows he has managed to shave this figure down by about £1,300, and in the league table of amounts MPs' claim for ­additional costs allowance he's in the bottom hundred (571 out of 645 MPs).

By contrast his brother David, the foreign secretary, spent so much on pot plants at his constituency home in South Shields that his gardener ­questioned whether they were ­necessary. In the league table, David Miliband is 118 places higher than his brother, at 453.

Although members can claim £400 a month for food – some MPs have apparently claimed the maximum every month – not so in the Benn household. Hilary Benn claimed only £147.78 a year in food.

Compare that with the £160 a year that one Conservative reportedly claimed in annual servicing of his Aga.When all MPs' total expenditures are ranked, Benn's bill is the 15th least expensive for the taxpayer.

Should there be a leadership contest, the expenses of health secretary Alan Johnson will be unlikely to trip him up.

The paper says he has claimed for "only" his Hull West and Hessle ­constituency home over the past four years.

Johnson's declared expenses show that the health secretary's claim for accommodation put him down at 544 in the list of 645 MPs.